Lilium `Picasso` is classified botanically as a Lilium hybrid; commercially, as an upright Asiatic hybrid, Div. 1A in the Horticultural Classification of the Genus Lilium adopted by The Royal Horticultural Society of London.
It was discovered when it first flowered in 1970 among the seedling beds of test crosses of Oregon Bulb Farms, Sandy, Oreg. The cross was made in the year 1968.
The cross was made between the seed parent `Enchantment` U.S. Plant Pat. No. 862 and the pollen parent `Connecticut King` (unpatented).
The cross was made during a breeding program having for its objective the production of brilliantly-colored, upright flowering lily cultivars which would perform well when forced into flower under glass throughout the year, in addition to meeting the requirements of vigor, disease resistance, and rapid natural propagation under field cultivation. Cultivars were sought which would be disease resistant, virus tolerant, and not overly susceptible to leaf scorch and bud abortion upon forcing under glass.
My new lily plant resulting from this program is characterized by rapid natural propagation under field conditions as well as by vigorous and healthy growth when forced under glass. The buds are brilliant orange. The flowers are particularly distinctive in that they are brilliant orange, unspotted, but characterized by the presence of distinctive oxblood red "brush marks".
My new variety most closely resembles the older cultivar `Enchantment`, but differs from it and is superior to it because of its more intense flower color, its lack of spots, and the distinctive brush marks which add interest to the flowers.
My new variety of lily plant has been asexually reproduced by me and under my direction at Sandy, Oreg. Successive generations produced by bulb scale propagation and natural propagation from bulblets have demonstrated that the novel and distinctive characteristics of my new variety are fixed and hold true under asexual propagation from generation to generation.